The London Mint of Constantine

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Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Another Interesting Licinius Obverse Legend

Just like buses, nice coins often come in pairs - unfortunately in this case I didn't catch the second one! In the recent VCoins auction, lot #53 was a coin of Licinius I with the unknown, for London, obverse legend IMP LICINIUS AVG. The title of this post links to the auction record. It seems to be from the second T/F//PLN issue again and would sit between RIC 98 and 99. This obverse legend does occur at Lyons and Trier at around the same time, but is rare at those mints.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

A Scarce Obverse Legend of Licinius


This coin arrived today! A little "sleeper" in a group of three T/F//PLN coins. The other two were Constantines of the first T/F issue but this one is of Licinius from the later reduced weight T/F issue. Many thanks to Tony who alerted me to this coin.
Obverse IMP LICINIVS P AVG Laureate bust, draped and cuirassed.
Reverse SOL INVIC-TO COMITI Sol standing left as usual.
Weight 3.17g and die diameter 19mm (est.)
Unlisted in RIC but known from the single example in the Gaulle III hoard and the two examples in the Bourton-on-the-Water hoard. The two BoW examples were obverse and reverse die matches.
This shortened form of obverse legend for Licinius is quite scarce and this is only the second example I have, the other being RIC 42.